Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A Secret Thing about Tenure

It turns out that even if you have classes scheduled on only two days a week that you can expect to be on campus for a full five.

At least if you're heavily involved with GUWCI. Which I fully realize more sensible faculty wouldn't be. Except I'm not sensible, particularly because I'm totally passionate about GUWCI.

Based on my performance yesterday, I've been volunteered for yet another committee. I really want to be on it, but I also know I'm an idiot.

World domination is, indeed, a heady and exciting thing, but it also involves a fuck of a lot of time and effort.

It's days like these when I think to myself, "Self, why can't you be dead wood? You've got tenure now!" I also, on days like this, think that it would be fabulous to be a full-time, contract faculty member who could, justifiably, ignore all of this stuff.

And yet, here I am. And people seem to think I'm fabulous (and yes, I care about that, deeply.) I just wish that it involved a lot less time and effort. Because dude. This is requiring a lot of time and effort.

2 comments:

Susan said...

I always say that in my next life, I won't be a responsible and effective person :)
And yes, there is some immediate gratification for accomplishing something (nice) and also I at least enjoy the collaborative aspects of committee stuff.

Artistic Soul said...

I have found life post-tenure to be somewhat more stressful than live pre-tenure. When I was pre-tenure, people didn't seem to expect much from me...now they KNOW me and I can't get away with slipping under the radar (which is my preferred MO to keep my writing goals in play).